Character Development Thread--Discussion

@Crystal Glacia: In regards to Adrian... Honestly, I almost forgot about him.

That might well just be me, though, and not a reflection of whether or not your character's interesting! Plus, I mean, it's been quite a while since the two of them met. I don't quite remember any thoughts I might have had about him at the time.

One thing I do remember, though, was that I never got the impression that he was supposed to be an arrogant jerk.

: Well... okay. Maybe impatient, but... hm, I don't feel that I really got the hang of him until the ruins/observatory. Writing jerks is really hard for me, mostly because most of the jerkassey I've seen in my life just seems shortsighted and detrimental from a purely tactical advantage. He's supposed to be intelligent enough to avoid that and know not to shoot his mouth off in a place that had at that point become the Lounge of Eldritch Horrors, but I guess his thoughts could have been nastier. It could just be a consequence of the characters who frequent CDTs being of the variety who could seriously mess him up (something that he generally doesn't have to worry about in his home setting), but this is something he'll need follow-ups for.

@ Snowy: Well, here, I saw Seilaan as, primarily, dutiful to her state and family while perhaps being somewhat ignorant of them. Maybe if the discussion of her state went in some different directions, we might have seen a bit more of her beyond the standard national pride, but the talk about Taiyin was sort of telling. I don't know if that gets addressed in-story, but I was left mostly with the feeling that I scratched the surface of something major that I didn't have any context for, especially with this monologue here.

Like... I don't know how to describe it. The monologue reveals a lot more definite information, but most of all, I get the sense that I uncovered some pretty ugly things about the state of her family, which may or may not be colored by her viewpoint but don't necessarily reveal much about Seilaan herself beyond the duty to her state/family and national pride.

And, of course, I don't know which of her CDT appearances you still consider canon for the purposes of this question, but if I add only Ren into this, I still only get the feeling that the things she's said and done contribute more to other characters and the world around her rather than herself. But based on what little I've seen and know of your actual story, I'm not convinced this is really that bad of a problem. Did your betas say why having her be nebulous is a bad thing?

And since I'm sure this post has seemed wonderfully organized thus far, some things you could try exploring are why she's so driven by duty and her relationship with Wilhelm.

edited 22nd Aug '14 11:00:06 PM by CrystalGlacia

So, given that the World's Fair (or, as I'd prefer, Worlds' Fair) idea seems pretty widely agreed upon, I think it's a good point to discuss some more details for it. To start with, what exactly are we thinking about for a setup here? Something like the actual historical world's fairs? A smaller fairground sort of deal? A single big building?

I'm also curious whether anyone has had any possible ideas for another new thread. Inn clearly won't last forever, and as I've said in the past I think there's definitely a lot of benefits to running two threads at once. It's not an immediate concern, though - given the RL schedule issues people have mentioned, we probably won't be launching any threads immediately.

Well, I did have an idea, given that Halloween is coming up (yes, I am aware that it is still late August), but I figured that if the idea dragged on for a while, the thread would lose its flavor.

So I'm out of anything but specific idea types.

Character Safari maybe? People can have their characters group up to chat, new people can join and interact at an agreed pace, systems for allowing characters to leave could be implemented, allows some setting exploration with different life forms (or you know, you can bring in a T-Rex), other facilities could be added.

Incidentally, I think Archipelago has passed Resort as the longest CDT by a fairly significant margin.

In terms of post count, Resort is still in the lead by a very long shot. Archipelago did overtake Mansion as second longest, however. On the other hand, Archipelago is indeed the longest in terms of how long it lasted (it made it for 320 days if my math's right; compare this to Resort's 273).

I don't have any secondary thread ideas at the moment. For the Worlds' Fair, I originally pictured it taking place in a singular building, although something between that and real life worlds' fairs sounds like the best idea to me.

edited 23rd Aug '14 1:48:35 AM by Yomegami

Not really, which surprises me. But I'm still not okay with it because it's not what I was trying to do.

People who read the draft can barely describe her. And I don't mean "barely describe" as in they try and they're off the mark, I mean that if I ask for three adjectives they can only come up with one. Or if they choose to describe her with complete sentences, they just talk a bit about her loyalty to the state. Either way, it's clear that I fucked up. It's a thing I did emphasize, and a lot of her problems are linked to her obsession with it, but it's the only thing people can pin down with any confidence.

I think it may also be possible that Seilaan's character isn't actually in quite so much trouble and the draft just didn't handle it well. I'm working on a new one right now that puts a lot of the old plot on the backburner to emphasize political/ character drama. So far it looks like there will be opportunities for her other characteristics to shine a bit more. That's what I said about the last draft, though....

Oh, there's one more thing that I noticed as of Ren and to a greater extent in previous appearances. I don't know to what extent you intend to include this, but Seilaan still sort of had that habit of fussing over certain people (like Matt[hias Cline] and possibly Wilhelm). Perhaps Archipelago put her too far into the role of an ambassador and Vince and Lily were sort of alienating, so she stuck in business mode. If you find that you're able to join the Worlds' Fair and bring Seilaan, I think she'd be better as a spectator, maybe with someone to remind her that, hey, you're on vacation. That, or I could bring Matt back; he's had enough changes to warrant a shot. Or both!

Alright, now for the thread. I was envisioning something between Cleveland's West Side Market and the Cleveland Auto Show, both of which are indoors but feel much different in terms of scale- the former feels like a maze and the latter feels very open-air. Which I guess is sort of like how real life Worlds' Fairs are/were.

This also absolves us of having to keep track of the time very closely, and depending on how the thread goes, it might not even matter. And if we assume it's crowded enough, we could also get away with not keeping especially close tabs on what stalls are where in relation to each other, other than food stalls being clustered together around a dining area. Oh, and when I went to the Cleveland Auto Show in 2013, I recall there being a bar in their dining area. So... yeah. I also think the food stalls will have an easier time getting away with being generic, or just being whatever the characters really want at the time.

I also think there should be hotel rooms nearby. And a fighting ring on a stage, should someone decide that they want a proper duel (although there's nothing stopping anybody from starting a fight outside it).

I feel like a big problem with Archipelago was that it required too much investment on everyone's part to expand upon Pax- the person making the island would be obligated to create a plot as well as a setting and characters, other people's characters could get tied up on this other island with little recourse, and there's just the whole in-story notion of taking a boat into the great beyond. At a big convention, finding something else to do if you don't like whatever you're currently at is just a matter of walking away, but you're also obligated- to a degree -to make your own fun, and talk with whatever writers you've gathered with on what sort of stall could spur the most interesting or character-developing discussion. (I'm sure you're all tired of me singing Dream's praises, but this was something I really liked about it.)

edited 23rd Aug '14 11:31:04 AM by CrystalGlacia

Speaking of time (and weather if that ever becomes an issue), I'd like to volunteer to run it. I'm going to have a lot of free time on my hands this fall, and even if I have some problem with actually writing for the threads, updating the time isn't much work. So I should be able to do it consistently.

Yeah, the fussing is an intentional thing.

I don't want to ramble too long about Seilaan so I'll just... ponder some more. I think the World Fair, being a very different environment from the one she was just in, might help her out. She would love a fighting ring. I've made some significant changes to other important characters as well, so I'm probably going to pick at least one more.

I'll almost certainly show up in the new thread, though the question is when. Might be interesting to give al-Filasteeni an actual appearance beyond providing snarky editor's notes in W.A. documents.

EDIT: Also, will have a few comments on the threads I was in... eventually-ish.

edited 23rd Aug '14 5:50:54 PM by KillerClowns

Off-topic to the current discussion (although it's inspired by some of what Snowy was saying), I've been wondering for a while: in what ways have people's characters and works changed since they originally started in the CDTs? I've been participating in the threads for three years now; though my characters and works haven't really evolved that much, that's still a fairly long time. And I get the sense some people's characters or works have changed more drastically.

(I would really appreciate it if anyone who's not currently participating but still reads this thread chimed in on this one, BTW).

Well, I'll tell you one thing entering the CD Ts has done for me: it's deterred me from starting to write at the moment. The thing is the characters I've entered have turned out to be a bit blander than I'd expected, and I feel I need to find a voice for them all before I continue writing (a task I made more difficult for myself by not sticking around long enough in any of the CD Ts for character development to actually take place).

One thing the CD Ts have helped me with in the positive sense is in my world building. Since I'm usually focused on plot elements most of the time, it generally takes me a while to realize what portions of my world building are incomplete. Engaging in conversations with everyone else's characters sometimes points me in the right direction (at least, I've been able to place names on things which just had placeholders before I entered).

edited 24th Aug '14 4:55:51 AM by Elfhunter

(Oh, Nrj, thank you for volunteering to run the thread for us.)

It's worth noting that although I've been working with at least one element of my current project since 2007 (a character that would later become Katsuo Akamura), I never 'wrote' any actual narrative material that lasted beyond the day nor had any definite plot, character, or setting elements nailed down pre-CDT. In effect, I came to the CDTs as a pretty nascent writer. To say that everything about my writing has changed is an understatement- more accurately, nearly everything I know about writing is (at the very least) an indirect result of this place. General prose, characterization, worldbuilding, dialogue... everything you can think of, except large-scale plot progression.

I know that the last one has never been the CDTs' strong suit, but as for the rest, I'm not sure what exactly caused the changes, whether there's something inherent to the CDTs (seems doubtful; then again, the CDTs are the only thing of their sort I've ever found), or if it's just because I was around vastly stronger and more experienced writers than I and I wanted to improve for them, or if I'm older and more mature, or more than one of the previous, or something else entirely.

edited 24th Aug '14 7:53:24 AM by CrystalGlacia

The biggest change that happened for me? I hate worldbuilding so much now. I didn't pay enough attention to it before these threads. So if when other characters started asking questions and you suspected I was frantically pulling things out of my ass, yes! I probably was. Every time I go back to the actual writing I had to think about everything I overlooked, come up with a fix, and axe the parts of the story that no longer made sense. And in that process I discovered that worldbuilding is something I don't actually want to do, most of the time. I didn't come to terms with this reality until the end of Ren Island, which is part of the reason why I fizzled out. Well, there was also school and life in general but not being good at worldbuilding didn't help. My newest draft is pushing it more into the background.

Characters, on the other hand, are what I've always loved to work with, even if they can frustrate the hell out of me. For some reason fictional people fascinate me, but I tend to have a very hard time interacting with real people. So the threads are a lot of fun for me, but I don't actually know if my writing has improved because of them or just from the fact that I'm older, more critical of myself, and have more access to feedback on my drafts.

That's quite remarkable to hear from you considering I thought Ren felt quite well-built. You were really pulling most of that out of thin air on the fly?

That is true for almost everything involving the military. It's a problem that was more serious when I first began participating, though.

Like nearly everyone else, the CDTs have helped me with worldbuilding for the most part, since when you bring a character in they're likely going to get asked about their home setting a lot. Since I'm also one of those people who finds a lot of that task to be really boring (I'm very much a pure character person than a setting person) it's been pretty handy.

Since I barely write outside of the CDTs my characters who have been part of a thread have also changed a bit. A lot of them didn't even have distinct personalities before being brought in. Rachel, for example, didn't have a Lovecraft obsession before being brought into University, and City highlighted a lot about what was wrong with Uffern prior to the thread (though to be fair it was acting pretty OOC for nearly that entire thread). That said, they've also highlighted I have trouble with anyone who isn't a protagonist (or Big Bad).

I have almost the exact opposite problem that you do. I'm all about the worldbuilding, and this often comes at the expense of character.

What I get out of these threads is the chance to test-drive my characters and force them into situations that expose gaps I need to fill or deficiencies in how I am writing them. Usually, after giving a character a run in the threads, I come out of the exercise with a better idea of who they are, or at the very least where I want them to go.

The biggest thing that CDT threads did for me was help me with my characters and their personalities. It actually helped me understand them a little more, and how they would react if they were pulled out of their settings.

It also helped me a little bit with worldbuilding, but like Yomegami, I'm more of a character person than a setting person.

I think pretty much everyone misunderstood what I was asking. While it's perfectly interesting to hear about the ways the CDTs have helped your writing, what I was actually wondering about was how your story or characters have changed independently since you first joined the threads. For instance, Snowy's mentioned how her conception of Seilaan has repeatedly changed, and Killer Clowns seems to have rather noticeably shifted his emphasis from the Earth-native characters to the Alosians. There's no reason behind this, I'm just kind of curious.

At least one project involving a CDT character has collapsed independent of the threads. I liked her as a character but Ten Years Late's setting wasn't working for me. Samuel's story, as I noted, has actually completed; his father has been more eminence gris than his thread appearance, something that cannot be played out very well in the CDTs.

edited 24th Aug '14 1:00:25 PM by Night

^^ I was going to write a post about this and then the terrible memories of my earlier drafts resurfaced and I just... nah. Maybe when my spirit is stronger. I just spent the greater part of the day/ afternoon moving into the dorms.

Most of the changes to my works have occurred as a result of the threads unless the work in question was never represented in the threads.

A few of the works represented in the CDTs did get changed around a little, though; I've been thinking about changing around the second half of Anne's story to something less outlandish, and Grimhilde got renamed to Katherine since her original name only applied to Disney's evil queen as far as I know. Also, Talitha's story is likely to get the ax altogether since I can't think of anything for it (plus Talitha herself didn't have much character to her).

Posting will be pretty sporadic until Wednesday due to internet problems.